Chapter-I

1.1Introduction

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 INTRODUCTION TO QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

This chapter serve as an introduction and provides the necessary

theoretical framework for developing proper perspectives of the subject. Quality of
work life (QWL) is a relatively new concept which is defined as the overall quality of
an individual’s working life.QWL is sometimes considered as a sub-subject of the
broad concept of quality of life includes factors such as income, social relationships,
and other factors such as happiness and fulfilment. QWL being the main subject of
the present study meaning, definition, scope of the QWL, and QWL in the Indian
context, etc., have been discussed in this chapter. Quality of work life parameters
which are adopted by the researcher has been discussed at the end of the chapter.

Evolution of quality of work life (QWL)

The quality of work life refers to all the organizational inputs that aim at
the employees’ satisfaction and enhancing organizational effectiveness. Walton R.E.
(1973) attributed the evolution of life to various phases in history. Legislation enacted
in early 20th century to protect employees from risks inherent in job and to eliminate
hazardous working conditions, followed by the unionization movement in the 1930s
and 1940s were the initial steps. Emphasis was on ‘job security, due process at the
work place and economic gains for the worker’. The 1950s and the 1960s saw the
development of different theories by psychologists proposing a positive relationship
between morale and productivity, and the possibility that improved human relations
that would lead to enhancement of productivity. Attempts at reforms to acquire equal
employment opportunity and job enrichment schemes also were introduced. During
1970’s the idea of QWL was evolved, according to Walton, as a broader concept than
the earlier developments, and something that includes the values, human needs and
aspirations.

An international conference was held at Arden house. New York in 1972.

It dealt in detail with the practice and theory of democratization of work place. In this
conference the term “Quality of work life’ was introduced, and the International
Council for Quality of working life (ICQWL) was formed to facilitate research on and
action for Quality of working life. During 1972 to 1980bthe concern for QWL gained

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momentum, and assumed the proportion of a movement. Some of the members of
ICQWL wanted to hold another International Conference, during the 1980s. In
Canada, QWL researches were gaining attention; and a weekend meeting was
organised in Toronto in 1980 to discuss ICQWL’s proposal. The first open
International Conference was organized in Toronto in August 1981 on quality of work
life. A large number of managers, union representatives and academicians, attented
the conference. Jenkins (1981) observed that the Toronto conference demonstrated
that the quality of working life is becoming an important issue of the ongoing
organisational reality to enhance the Quality of work life of employees.

Meaning and concept of QWL

The phrase ‘Quality of work life’ (QWL) connotes different meanings to

different people. Some consider it an industrial democracy or co-ordination with
increased employees participation in the decision making process. For others,
particularly managers and administrators, the term denotes improvement in the
psychological aspects of work to improve productivity. Unions and workers interpret
it has more equitable sharing of profits, job security, healthy and congenial working
conditions. Still others view it as improving social relationship at workplace through
autonomous work groups. Finally, others take a broader view of changing the entire
organizational climate by humanising work, individualizing organisations and
changing the entire organisational climate by humanising work, individualizing
organisations, and developing the structural and managerial systems.

Broadly, the concepts of QWL involves four major aspects:

i. Safe work environment,

ii. Occupational health care,

iii. Suitable working time, and

iv. Appropriate salary.

The safe work environment provides the basis for a person to be happy at work. The
work should not pose a health hazard for the person. The employer and employees are
aware of their risks and rights, and could achieve a lot for their mutual benefit. The

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working times has been indicated by the state according to the legislation. The
concept of QWL is based on the assumption that a job is more than just a job; it is
centre of a person’s life. In recent years there has been increasing concern for QWL
due to the following factors:

 Increase in education level and consequently job aspirations of employees;

 Association of workers;

 Significance of human resource management;

 Widespread industrial unrest;

 Growing of knowledge in human behaviour ,etc.

Definition of Quality of work Life:

Quality is defined by several authors Dedhia Navin, S. (1998) stated that
“quality is about behaving in a way that reflects on individuals and organization
understanding of the fundamental inter-connectedness of structure, process and
outcome”. There are many aspects of quality and fall into categories such as consumer
view point of quality, producer view point of quality, personnel, behavioural quality,
quality practices, reliability, education, training, team work, communication and other
such topics are always included in ‘quality’ discussion. Quality is the totality of the
features and characteristics of a product, service or a person that bear on its or his
ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
Walton. R.E, (1973) who had taken up extensive research on QWL can be
considered as a major contributor to the concept of productivity and human resources.
He devised an eight point of criteria to measure the ‘quality of work life. The
categories are: (i) adequate and fair compensation, (ii) safety and healthy working
environment, (iii) opportunity to develop human capabilities, (iv) growth and security,
(v) social integration, (vi) constitutionalism, (vii) total life space and (viii) social
relevance.

According Lippitt, G.L.(1978) the term QWL broadly referring to the

degree to which work provides an opportunity for an individual to safety a wide
variety of personal needs to survive with some security, to interact with others, to

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have sense of personal usefulness, to be recognised for achievement and to have an
opportunity to improve one’s skills and knowledge.

Knox, S. And J.A.Irving (1997) stated that the QWL practices and policies
of the QWL determine the organisation environment, and organization development
and interventions operationalise the constructs. Individual employee’s perceptions
concerning strengths and weakness in the total work environment and what is or is not
desirable in the workplace are other foci for research.

Elisaveta, S. (2006) is of opinion that the QWL has the correlative

relationship between quality of work life and satisfaction with definite job attributes
in regard to job contents and work environment.

According to D.S.Cohan defines quality of working life as “a process of

joint decision-making collaboration and building mutual respect between management
and employees.

Factors Influencing the Quality of Working Life

Many different factors influence the quality of an individual’s working if.

These factors include working conditions, workplace-stress and job satisfaction.

1. Job satisfaction refers to how far the individuals are satisfied with their
position of employment. Factors such as workplace environment, peers, income and
work duties influence how satisfied an employee is with the job. When job
satisfaction is positive, this contributes to a better quality of working life. An
individual who is satisfied with their job is more likely to experience a higher quality
of working life than an employee who is dissatisfied or even resentful of the work.

2. Workplace-stress refers to the amount of stress experienced by an employee in

the work environment. Workplace-stress is caused by numerous factors, including what
duties an individual must perform, or their peer group in a company, and their overall
workload. An employee who has stressful work related duties, such as an emergency

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room doctor who is responsible for the lives of countless people each day, is more
likely to experience workplace stress. An employee, who has a heavy workload, is also
more likely to experience workplace-stress. Workplace-stress often leads to the stress
outside the workplace due to the attending to other items of work in an individual’s
daily life. This stress is the cause of experiencing lower quality of work life.

3. Other factors which influence quality of working life are: (i) individual
employees wage, (ii) their working hours, (iii) workplace conditions, (iv) fairness in the
workplace, (v) personal characteristics such as anxiety or depression.

i) An individual who is receiving a low wage, especially in

comparison to how difficult their job, will have a lower quality
of work life.

ii) The working hours can also influence the overall quality of
working life. Employees who work for too many hours, too few
hours, or unusual hours are more likely to report that they have a
lower quality of working life. An individual who has very few
working hours at the work place in not likely to receive enough
money to maintain his standard of living. While an individual
who is working for too many hours is likely to experience
workplace stress and decline in social relationship. The unusual
hours can cause a decline in the quality of life due to the fact
that individuals with unusual hours are more likely to see a
decline in social relationship as well as experience difficulty in
attending to normal activities.

iii) The wage of the individual employees should be related to the

job they perform, through fair compensation.

iv) Work place condition are influencing the performance of their

work, and it consists of all the factors which act and react on the
body and mind of an employee. Working conditions refer to

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 these as properly maintained as per the norms of Factories Act
and other enactments.

v) Fairness in the workplace refers to how fair a workplace is and

how fairly it is maintained. When a workplace is not managed
fairly, it generally means that every individual in the workplace
is not treated equally. For example; if a certain employee is
continually late for work but does not receive a reduction in pay
or any other warning or punishment, while other employees are
punished for being late to work even once and their pay is cut
for these days, then this is considered unfairness in the
workplace. When a workplace is considered unfair, this leads to
a decline in the quality of working life because an individual
worker may feel resentment at being unfairly punished or fired
due to the workplace unfairness.

vi) Quality of working life may be affected by personal

characteristics exhibited by an employee. Personal
characteristics can affect a workplace through how it is
perceived, or how job duties are performed. An individual who
is anxious in social situation, for example, will report a lower
quality of working life if this situation requires constant, daily
interaction with other people. Other personal characteristics
such as shyness, depression and general happiness can also
affect the overall quality of working life as these characteristics
influence the way the individual performs the duties sincerely.

Quality of Work Life Parameters

In this research study the parameters of Quality of Work Life which

influence the adverse effects of changes in work environment to QWL with
implications for career development and human resource management are examined..
Based on the foregoing factors influencing the quality of work life, parameters like

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health and safety, welfare facilities, working conditions, compensation, career growth
and development, grievance redressal mechanism, social integration and social
relevance of work life are selected for this study. These parameters are discussed
briefly in this section.

Health and Safety

Health and safety of the workers are quite important in every
organization. In the Chapter IV of the Factories act, 1948 its amendment 1987 has
given several provisions in factories to maintain the health and safety of the workers.
There are different aspects which enable health and safety of the workers in the
workplace and are maintained in accordance to the provisio9ns of the Factories Act,
1948. They include social security measures such as insurance of workers,
compensation on disablement or death, etc. the Factories Act also emphasized the
different infrastructure such as Bathrooms, rest rooms, urinals, first aid boxes,
medical facilities, etc. to the workers in industries. The laws also enable use of
personal protective equipments, such as helmets, hard hats, etc in the work place.
Occupational health and safety is an area concerned with protecting the safety, health
and welfare of people engaged in work.

Welfare facilities
The concept of ‘labour welfare’ is flexible and elastic and differs
widely with times, regions, industry, country, social values and customs, the degree of
industrialization, the general socio economic development of people and political
ideologies prevailing at particular moments. The constituents of labour welfare
included working hours, working conditions, safety, industrial health insurance,
workmen’s compensation, provident funds, gratuity, pension, protection against
indebtedness, industrial housing, rest room, canteens, and crèches wash places, toilet
facilities, lunch, cinemas, music, reading rooms, co-operative store, playground etc.
Employee welfare measures promote the physical, social, psychological and general
well-being of the working population. Welfare work in any industry aims at
improving the working and living conditions of workers and their families.

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Working conditions
Quality of work life is dependent on various aspects of the employee’s work
life. The first and foremost important factor among them is economic aspects. The
second important aspect is working conditions. Thus order can be compared to
Maslow’s hierarchy of work motivation. Abraham Maslow arranged a person’s
motivational needs in a hierarchical manner. He believed that once a given level of
need is satisfied, the next level of needs has to be activated in order to motivate the
individual. Once the employees is satisfied with the monetary benefits, he aspires for
higher level of needs to be fulfilled, i.e., good working and employment conditions.

An employee normally spends 6 to 8 hours at his work place which is

significant part of the employee’s time. Hence, providing good working conditions
play an important role in reducing employee dissatisfaction about the job. A well
equipped building with good furniture and other facilities impact employees more
than anyone else.

Compensation
Compensation and rewards are motivational factors. The best performer is
given rewards, and this builds competition among the employees to work hard and to
achieve both organizational and individual goals. The economic interests of people
drive them to work at a job, and employee satisfaction depends at least partially, on
the compensation offered. Pay should be fixed on the basis of the work done,
responsibilities undertaken, individual skills, performance and accomplishments.

Grievance redressal mechanism

Grievance is a disagreement between an employee and management on the
rules, terms or conditions of employment. The causes for a grievance may include, but
are not limited to, complaint concerning wages, hours of work, working conditions,
performance evaluations, job assignments, or the interpretation or application of a
rule, regulation or policy. The grievance process must be clear and simple. It must be

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well-defined. It must conform to the current legislation without any prejudice. There
should not be delay in the grievance process it a might result into a crisis.

Social integration at work

The work environment should provide opportunities for preserving an
employee’s personal identity and self-esteem through freedom from a prejudice, a
sense of community interpersonal openness and the absence of satisfaction in the
organization. Social integration is social relations that employees share at work place
with his superiors and subordinates. If he has strained relations with his superiors or
his colleagues his work life is naturally affected

Social Relevance of work life

Social relevance is a distinct concept that reflects to an employee’s desire to
remain with an organization out of a sense of loyalty, emotional attachment and
financial needs (Meyer et al., 1989). Employees must be given the perspective of how
his/her work in the organization helps the society. This is essential to build relevance
of the employee’s existence to the society he/she lives in relationship between among
the employees in an indicator of healthy work organization. QWL is positively
correlated with organizational commitment, job involvement, organizational
citizenship behavior, life satisfaction, mental health and job performance. It is
negatively related to turnover, absenteeism and perceived stress.

Criteria for measuring QWL

Job Involvement:

It represents the degree of an individual’s identification with or ego

involvement in the job. The more central the job is to the individual’s life, the greater
is his involvement in it. Therefore, the individual spends more time and energy on the
job. People with high job involvement are better motivated and more productive.
Research reveals that skills variety, achievement and challenge help to improve job
involvement.

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Job satisfaction:

It implies the worker’s satisfaction with the environment of his

environment consisting of nature of work quality of supervision, pay, co-workers, and
opportunities for promotion, etc., job satisfaction is related to job involvement and
people involved in their jobs are satisfied with their jobs and vice versa.

Sense of competence:

It refers to the feeling of confidence that an individual has in his own

competence. Sense of competence and job involvement reinforce each other. An
individual acquires a greater sense of competence as the engages himself more and
more in work activities. When he feels more competent he becomes more involved in
his job and becomes better motivated.

Personality Traits:

In order to get willing and wholehearted performance from the employees

certain personality traits are observed.

Need:

Every human being has certain needs and if these needs are satisfied he is
motivated to give his best performance.

Growth need: Every person in the organization wants to go up the

hierarchical ladder. If the management gives necessary support to develop his career,
he is happy to work with the organization.

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Work ethic:

Business ethics are to be observed by every organization. It is the duty of the

HR manager to see that quality food is provided in the canteen and no substandard is
used.

Job performance:

When an individual’s job involvement, job satisfaction and sense of

competence increase, there is rise in job performance.

Productivity:

When the level of job performance increase, the output per unit of input
goes up. Thus, match between job characteristics and productivity traits of employees
generally results in higher productivity.

QWL in India

The quality of work life (QWL) Apart from ensuring fair pay, the fair
treatment of employee needs. QWL in India can be improved through a variety of
instrumentalities like education and training, employee communication, union
participation, research projects, and appreciation of changing environment. Improved
quality of work life was not considered as important factor in India until recently as
there were important impending factors like resource deficiency, environmental
threats and some services of financial problems. These factors can be considered as
one of the reasons for delayed improvement of QWL. Quality of work life programs
has become important in work place for the following reasons:

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 1. Increased demand at work
2. Loss of long term employee guarantees
3. The need for enhanced work place skills
4. Greater completion for talent
5. Increased women in work force

In India, some of the companies that emphasize the quality of work life are
Hewlett-Packard, Smith K line Beecham, American Express, Colgate Palmolive,
Gillette, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Reliance and Maruti Udyog Limited. HP allows
flexible working arrangements for its employees and follows certain innovative
practices such as allowing employees to avail leave for special occasions (marriage,
exam preparation, adoption of a child, bereavement in the family, and paternity).

Following are factors that led to the QWL movement in our country:

1. Changing profile of the Indian worker from illiterate, rural, low caste
individual to educated, urban and essentially belonging to upper strata of caste
structure has made him/her more concern for own hopes and aspirations.

2. That worker is not just like other factors of production such as, machinery,
land, and capital but a human being with feelings and emotions, has made
organizations behave with workers accordingly. The establishment of a
separate ministry of human resource development by the government of India
is a testimony to such realization.

3. In India, around 10 per cent of workers in organized sector are unionized. The
past record relation to labour unions lends enough evidence that the unionized
work force has been much vocal for demands of one type or other.

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 4. The human behavior is highly unpredictable and complex underlines the need
for the study of organizational behavior. QWL is one of the newer concepts
experimenting how to make effective utilization of human resources.

QWL in India seems in practice in a variety of operational systems like

workers participation, job enrichment, quality circles, etc. here, an attempt has been
made to give an overview of these in terms of their broad coverage and experiences of
Indian organization with them.

Objectives of QWL

The main objectives of the QWL are to

1. Improve employee satisfaction.

2. Improve physical and psychological health of employees which

creates positive feeling.

3. Enhance productivity of employees.

4. Reinforce workplace learning.

5. Improve management of the ongoing change and transition and

6. Build the image of the company as best in recruitment, retention,

and in general motivation of employees.

Benefits of QWL

There are some benefits through the adoption of QWL, they are;

 Growth of the individual

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 Better job satisfaction

 Self actualization of the individual

 Better employee performance for the organization

 Availability of intrinsically motivated employees to the

organization

 Less absenteeism, turnover and grievances for the

organization

 Full use of human resources for society

 Effectiveness of the employees’ interpersonal communication

skills, career counseling.

 Improvement of work place morale

 Encouraging employee commitment

 Enhance productivity

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1.2 OBJECTIVES

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Objectives of the study
 To study the impact of job factors on Quality of work life in
spinning mill employees of Karaikal district.

 To identify the various parameters determining Quality of

work life in spinning mill employees of Karaikal district.

 To measure the level of Quality of work life in spinning mill

based on the selected parameters.

 To give suggestions and recommendation for the promotion

of Quality of work life in the specific organisation.

 To analyse the feedback was given by the respondents.

 To find out the ways to improve the Quality of work life in

spinning mill at Karaikal district.

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1.3 LIMITATION

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Limitation of the study

 Some of the employees are illiterate. So it was

difficult to collect the exact data.

 There is no sufficient time to collect the data.

 There was some problem to meet the employees

during the working hours of the factory

 It was very difficult to collect company records.

Especially financial statement of accounting details.

 Some of the employees are refused to answer the

question.

 Research area is abridging only to government

organisations, private organisations has not been taken at any
cause for research.

 The employees Quality of work life cannot be

analysed with 100 samples.

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